1 PSPP NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2 Time-stamp: <2009-09-08 21:08:29 blp>
3 Copyright (C) 1996-9, 2000, 2008, 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end for copying conditions.
6 Please send PSPP bug reports to bug-gnu-pspp@gnu.org.
8 Changes from 0.7.1 to 0.7.2:
10 * Updated Perl module interface.
12 * Value labels for long string variables are now supported.
14 * Missing values for long string variables are now supported.
16 Changes from 0.7.0 to 0.7.1:
18 * Added a perl module to facilitate reading and writing of pspp system
19 files from perl programs.
21 Changes from 0.6.2-pre6 to 0.7.0:
23 * Custom variable and data file attributes are now supported.
24 Commands VARIABLE ATTRIBUTE and DATAFILE ATTRIBUTE have been added
25 for setting and clear attributes. Support for attributes has also
26 been added to commands that read and write system files, such as
27 SAVE and GET, as well as to the DISPLAY command.
29 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2-pre6:
33 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
35 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
37 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
38 translationproject.org.
40 * Statistical bug fixes:
42 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
45 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
46 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
47 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
49 * Build fixes and changes:
51 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
52 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
54 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
56 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
58 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
59 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
60 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
63 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
65 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
67 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
68 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
69 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
72 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
74 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
76 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
77 with spaces as expected.
79 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
80 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
81 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
83 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
85 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
87 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
88 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
89 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
90 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
92 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
93 that does not exist (bug #24569).
95 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
98 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
100 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
102 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
104 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
105 instead of the current directory, to better match user
108 - Some data editor fixes.
112 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
113 >>>>>>> origin/stable:NEWS
115 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
117 * Statistical bug fixes:
119 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
120 regression output (bug #23567).
122 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
124 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
126 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
128 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
130 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
132 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
133 disk accesses on modern machines.
137 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
140 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
143 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
144 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
147 * Build fixes and changes:
149 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
150 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
152 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
155 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
156 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
158 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
159 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
161 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
163 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
165 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
166 found them too poor to be useful.
168 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
170 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
171 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
173 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
174 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
175 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
176 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
179 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
182 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
186 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
187 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
188 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
190 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
191 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
192 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
194 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
195 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
197 Statistical procedure changes:
199 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
200 via least-squares estimation.
202 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
203 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
205 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
208 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
209 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
211 User interface changes:
213 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
214 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
216 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
219 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
220 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
221 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
224 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
225 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
226 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
227 executed as if `+' had been specified.
229 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
230 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
231 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
233 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
234 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
235 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
236 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
241 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
242 manual for a full description of the available options.
244 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
245 "make install" will do this for you.
247 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
248 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
250 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
251 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
252 Previously, by default output was written only to file
253 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
254 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
259 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
260 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
261 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
262 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
264 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
265 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
266 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
270 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
271 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
272 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
273 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
274 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
276 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
277 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
280 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
281 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
282 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
283 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
285 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
286 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
287 longer needed, or supported.
289 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
290 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
291 no longer needed, or supported.
295 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
296 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
297 is no longer needed, or supported.
299 Command language changes:
301 * The following commands are new:
303 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
304 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
305 types of foreign data.
307 - CD, to change the current directory.
309 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
311 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
314 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
316 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
318 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
321 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
323 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
325 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
327 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
329 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
332 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
334 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
335 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
336 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
338 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
339 re-implemented in a later release:
341 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
347 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
348 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
349 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
351 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
352 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
354 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
356 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
357 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
358 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
359 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
362 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
363 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
364 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
366 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
367 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
368 reassigned to new files.
370 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
371 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
372 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
373 documentation on those particular commands.
377 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
378 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
379 format of these files.
381 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
382 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
383 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
384 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
387 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
388 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
389 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
390 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
391 native floating point format.
393 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
394 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
395 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
397 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
398 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
400 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
401 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
402 subcommands has been added.
404 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
405 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
406 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
409 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
410 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
412 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
413 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
414 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
418 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
419 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
422 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
423 have been extensively revised and improved.
425 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
428 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
430 Changes in build dependencies:
432 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
435 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
436 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
437 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
439 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
441 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
443 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
445 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
453 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
454 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
457 * T-TEST (re-written).
459 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
460 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
463 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
464 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
465 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
466 third-party software.
468 * SET EPOCH implemented.
470 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
473 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
475 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
476 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
477 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
479 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
480 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
482 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
483 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
485 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
486 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
487 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
490 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
491 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
494 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
497 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
500 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
501 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
502 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
504 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
506 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
508 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
511 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
512 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
515 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
516 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
518 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
522 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
525 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
526 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
528 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
529 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
531 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
534 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
537 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
540 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
541 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
542 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
544 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
546 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
548 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
552 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
554 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
558 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
559 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
561 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
563 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
565 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
569 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
571 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
573 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
574 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
576 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
577 didn't like being the last command in a file.
579 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
580 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
581 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
582 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
584 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
585 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
586 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
588 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
589 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
590 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
592 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
593 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
594 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
597 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
598 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
601 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
602 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
604 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
605 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
606 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
608 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
609 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
610 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
612 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
613 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
614 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
617 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
618 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
621 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
622 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
624 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
627 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
628 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
629 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
631 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
632 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
636 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
637 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
639 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
640 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
641 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
643 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
645 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
649 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
651 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
653 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
654 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
656 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
658 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
659 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
661 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
662 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
664 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
665 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
668 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
669 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
674 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
675 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
676 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
678 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
682 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
684 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
685 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
688 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
689 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
690 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
692 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
694 Procedures now implemented:
695 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
697 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
700 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
701 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
712 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
713 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
716 New command-line features:
717 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
718 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
719 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
720 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
721 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
723 Operator LAG is now implemented.
725 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
727 Table output manager completely rewritten.
729 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
730 reinstall your `devices' file.
732 New output driver for HTML.
734 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
736 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
738 Added Texinfo documentation for:
739 * PSPP system file format
740 * PSPP portable file format
741 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
744 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
745 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
747 Changes for version 0.1.0:
749 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
750 versions, please see ONEWS.
752 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
753 Copyright information:
755 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
756 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
757 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
758 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
760 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
761 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
762 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
766 version-control: never